Seulement un nom
by Nights-into-dreams
Summary: (One shot; First person POV) Li comes to Vana’diel from the Far Eastern Empire to search for a new life free from suffering...and finds that pain and sorrow is universal, even here in Vana’diel.


AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is my attempt to fit the gil-sellers of Bismarck into the realm of Vana'diel in a proper way, and to help explain why they do the things they do. This story contains strong language, violence, and a couple references to some horrible atrocities committed by humanity in the past, so I do not recommend it for those of you who cannot stand such a thing. I can promise you that I have not used these tools of literature lightly if you do read on. Also, the title of this story is French for "Only a Name".

I do not own FFXI, it is all owned by SE. So don't sue.

Please read and review, I humbly request of you. I write for you all, the public. Feel free to email comments to:

Sm (underscore) scales (at) yahoo (dot) com

And for this story...I am dedicating it to Ingrid. You and I both know you are watched by your home government, and I wish you and your husband all the luck in the world. May you never have to be alone or suffer again...

* * *

My name was Li. 

As I slowly disembarked the boat that had carried myself and many others from the Far East, the first thing I saw was a dark cave, shrouded in moonlit mist.

Stepping onto the wooden dock, the guard dressed in red and black armor that had crossed on the voyage gave us all a couple swift smacks of his polearm to herd us together, and then hustled us into a small room nearby. Once we were all in, he quickly shut the door, and with the deadbolt swiftly clanking into place, I realized we were trapped.

Fighting down the panic that started to rise in me, I took stock of the unfortunately bare room. Even though there were many bodies obscuring my vision, I could only the door, a small lantern hung over head, and a roaring fire in the fireplace in the corner that threw out red and orange sparks ever so often onto the cracked stone floors and walls.

My friends, family, and I had been at sea for two long weeks, since last Lightday. With the war in our homeland, we all quickly took up this galka's offer to come to the Far West aboard this cargo ship.

We were hoping for a sanctuary, for a refuge…

What we found was that while aboard, they barely fed us.

They kept us in the dark, crammed into and on top of each other in the bowels of the ship, with only the gentle rhythmic rocking of the ocean's waves to help keep us sane. If we even thought about trying to venture above deck, the galka that was on duty at that time, clad in the same red and black armor, would simply strike at him or her with the sharpened end of his sword. Often, the guard would wind up slashing open the ignorant soul's chest, ending their life in a most brutal way.

It was hell.

But now…but now we are here.

Dry land, here in the land of the Far West.

A land where there is no more conflict, and only peace reigns…

I feel a slender hand weakly grasp my index finger, and looking down a bit surprised, I see the hume woman that I had befriended on the journey here. She was quite pretty, with long black hair and a pale white complexion that blended in with her pearl white wedding dress that had been soiled and ruined by the ocean's spray leaking in through the cracks that weren't chalked on the boat..

A few days ago, she had told me that she loved the beach. She said that once she got to Vana'diel, the first thing she would do would be to spend all her time on the beaches boarding the sea between the kingdoms of San d' Oria and Bastok.

Her pale green eyes lit up instantly when she saw me looking down at her, and she smiled softly.

With a sudden urge, I pull away, and then hold her hand tightly in mine for no apparent reason. She blushed a light shade of red, and then laced her fingers in between mine.

And we stayed like that until _he_ arrived.

Looking at him, I could see that his hair was a light golden color, his body strong and muscular. He seemed to be a capable leader from the way that he held himself…yet…when I looked into his eyes, I could see a deep sadness there. He glanced over the crowd quickly, gave a half smile and shook his head a bit, and then left without saying anything.

When he left, the door was locked again and I fell asleep, gradually, unwillingly, with the wedding dress girl in my arms.

_Click._

The next thing I know, I woke up to the sound of a bullet sliding into a chamber of a gun next to my head.

"Get up."

Turning my head slowly towards where the voice came from, I looked directly up the wrong end of a firearm. Tracing its barrel upwards, I saw once more that galka that had pushed us into this room in the first place.

Now, I don't move, paralyzed with the fear that I might have gotten to the Far West only to die.

"One more chance. Get up or I blow your fucking brains out." With those words, I saw his enormous finger tighten on the trigger, and I could then see that he meant it.

I get up a bit clumsily, and then am lead through a maze of dark corridors and passages cut out of rock, the walls leaking with water and illuminated by faint flickering lanterns with his gun jabbed into the small of my back. We continue walking onwards until we get to a large wooden door that had been chipped and cracked over what must have been decades of misuse and mistreatment.

Without a word, the twin guarding galkas dressed in more black and red armor move aside silently, letting us through.

Once my eyes get adjusted to the sudden influx of light that shone throughout the room, the first thing I see is an enormous table filled with food of all sorts piled on top of each other in huge heaps. All different kinds of quiches, rice balls similar to the ones back home, pebble soup, grilled hare, baked popotos, mithkabobs, crackers, blackened and flamed frogs, red and yellow curry, and what looks like to be a lot of ambrosia…

Without noticing it at first, my mouth watered up and my famished stomach made its presence known as I felt the hunger well up inside as I felt the mixed smells of the delicious meals waft into my nose.

My hesitation rewarded me with a swift kick into the back of my knees. I stumble from the blazing pain and almost fall to the ground, only at the last moment somehow keeping upright. Slowly, I manage to keep it together as I walk mindlessly past the table full of food, towards the man who sat at the far end.

He was repulsively fat, his skin shining thick with animal grease that caught the lantern light. He looked at me with twin beady blue eyes that were almost hidden by rolls of his goop as he bit off another piece of mithkabob grasped in his pudgy, thick hand. He started to talk and chew with an open mouth at the same time, causing small bits of meat to fall out of his mouth to lie rotting on his chest.

"Welcome to Vana'diel…" He said before he let out a great belch that made the air rank with a putrid smell.

"You are currently in the stronghold of the Tenshodo, the people who brought you here."

He pauses for a moment, and them smiles a horrible smile that made me want to rip off my skin for I felt…infected with something by him…

"The people who brought you here…and your new masters."

He then chucked the half eaten mithkabob at me and it hit me in the side of the head, making my vision go blurry and black for a moment.

Barely able to raise my head, I looked directly at that monstrosity, and with a great effort, I spat at his face. It landed perfectly on him, and started to mix with the grease as it slid down his face.

"Cao ni ma," I tell him defiantly.

Masters?

To hell with that.

His face turned a deep shade of ragish-purple, and he barked out a single order to the galka guard.

"Make him think he went to Mordion Goal, and do it now!" He then grabbed an unused napkin to try to uselessly wipe the spit off of his face.

A large object then hit me in the back of my head, and I descended into the sweet darkness.

Some time later I wake up, only to find myself chained with my face shoved into a stone wall. My arms were fully outstretched above me, with my hands were bound together above me in a single leather cuff. My feet and legs were stretched out and chained below to the floor. Suddenly a breeze crept up my backside, and realized with a shock I realized I was nude.

I didn't expect to feel the whip crack against my back.

Its angry lash bit against my skin, breaking into it and making it start to bleed with out pause.

_Crack! Crack! Crack!_

The whip hit my lower back three times in a row at different angles, and I shivered in the restraints as my whole body felt like it was on fire, quivering and shaking and hurting and flaking and dying and self destructing into streams of blood that started to trickle down my buttocks to trail down my legs and feet and then on the chains. My eyes watered up with tears of pain and anguish that refreshed themselves every time I was hit.

_Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!_

My head lurched forward as I started to spew vomit that smelt like blood everywhere onto the wall opposite of me and onto my chest to dry up and crust and burn almost as bad as the lashes that never seemed to stop raining down upon me.

_Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!_

I've got to be dying, I have to be dying.

_Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!_

My mind goes numb eventually, and each sting started to feel like some sort of perverse pleasure.

_Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!_

Finally…

Eventually…

it stopped.

And with that, I fell unconscious again.

When I woke up this time, I was laying down in a pure white room, with the man whose sorrows laid showing in his eyes standing over me.

He smiled a bit, and then holds up the instrument that I must have been beaten with. A sudden sense of IMMENSE fear and anguish washed over me as I saw the black length of the whip coiled in his hand. Without warning, I started to vomit again.

"You don't want this again…do you?..." He spoke quietly, without a trace of emotion in his voice.

I shake my head violently.

Not that again, anything but that again…

Goddess, anything but that again.

"Then you will work for me?"

I jerk my head quickly up and down, violently as he starts to uncoil the whip in his hands.

"Good…I knew you would agree."

My eyes stay on the whip as he gently coddles it in his hands.

"You will from now on be in Castle Oztroja hunting Mee Deggi the Punisher. You see…I WANT that Ochiundo's Kote that he has. It fetches…a nice price on the Jeuno market."

He pauses for a moment, and them speaks again in the same tone of voice.

"Fail, and you will get…this…"

With a sudden flick of his wrist, he cracks the whip and it smacks the stone before my feet with a flash.

I try to sit up, but all the will is sapped out of me.

"Wo kan de dong." The words fall out of my bloodied lips as I turn my head to rest it on the floor.

It is then that I see the small green block letters tattooed on the inside of my right arm.

Using up my last strength, I look up at that…monster, and give him a gaze of pure hatred.

"Oh, that?" He smiles slowly. "Whatever you used to be, is gone. To me, you are only the name that I give you, one of the series of names that I gave to all of you to identify you as…after all...you are from the Far East, and thus, less than human. And because you are less than human…you are only fit for slavery or an honor-less death."

My name was Li.

But now…

It is Jerryx.

_-fin_


End file.
